TBH, I'd steer clear of a 10 gallon as a newbie. Evaporation can become a real issue very quick in such a small space. What kind of lights do you have? I'd probably avoid most of the softies because they can get big and grow fast, but your lights are going to play a huge part in what you can keep. Especially as a newbie I would suggest not going with a pair of clowns and sticking to one fish. A few inverts will be fine. I personally like hermits over snails, but there are a few snails that fare better with hermit crabs than others. Nassarius snails are cool, they move a little quicker and so far the two I have with my hermit crabs are just fine. Three or four hermit crabs are fine too as long as you have some algae for them to eat. Hermits are easier to keep than snails though, because they will also eat excess food that drops to the bottom. Snails need algae, except for the ones I just suggested, those will eat detritus off of the bottom and move your sand around too. I would stick with trochus snails or the small cerith snails if you are going to keep hermits, and most likely trochus will eventually get eaten and shells stolen if you decide on keeping hermit crabs.