Yes, A CLASH OF KINGS sold considerably better than A GAME OF THRONES. These series have a tendency to build.
It was a NY TIMES bestseller, which GAME was not. Also made lots of other lists.
However, in the publishing biz it is considered impolite to ask a writer about his sales figures... like asking someone how much they make when you meet 'em.
I've heard a good rumor about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. I've heard that it will be the fourth book in the series. The third is A STORM OF SWORDS.
Like all but a very few writers, I have absolutely no control over the covers of my books. The art is largely the province of the artist and art director, with some input from the editor.
Six. Definitely six. No more than six.
Six will allow me to tell the story I want to tell; three did not.
But I have other stories I want to tell as well, in this lifetime.
That note about Loras and Garlan carrying three and two roses respectively when fighting together is rather interesting. I suppose that means that Garlan took part in the tournament at Bitterbridge? The lack of mention of him at all suggests that he wasn't.
No, Ser Garlan wasn't at Bitterbridge. Loras must just have decided to use the three-rose shield that day. I don't see Garlan as being as much a glory hound as his kid brother, so tourneys are not his thing.
I might mention . . . that the rules of heraldry are a good deal more flexible in the Seven Kingdoms than they became by the late Middle Ages in the real world. There are no "laws" of heraldry per se, no college of heralds for enforcement, no formal regulations about cadency and differencing. So individual knights and lords have a certain amount of freedom to bear what shields they prefer and play around with their house sigils... or not, as the case may be. Thus Big and Little Walder, at Winterfell, quarter the arms of their mother's and grandmother's houses on their shields and surcoats, though they could just as lawfully wear the Frey towers unadorned. All three sons of Mace Tyrell are entitled to bear the Highgarden rose, and sometimes do... but when two or more of them are fighting together on the same field, you will often see Ser Garlan (the second son) with two roses on his shield, and Ser Loras (the thirdborn) with three. There is also the case of the harper/knight Pearse Caron in "The Hedge Knight," who chose to ride in the tourney with his personal emblem (a harp) on his shield, and the Caron nightingales on trappings and surcoat, and of course Raymun Fossoway in the same story, who births the green-apple Fossoways when he breaks with his cousin.
Robb Stark did something akin when he rode out of Winterfell in A GAME OF THRONES; you may recall that his shield bore a wolf's head, not the running wolf that appears on the Stark banners. Some of the old Kings in the North also had their own personal variants, undoubtedly, though I haven't yet decided what they were.
This sort of stuff happened all the time in the Dark Ages and early Middle Ages, where heraldry was unregulated and very much a matter of individual choice. It was only later that everything became formalized.
Your question re Sansa...
The way I see it, it is not a case of all or nothing. No single person is to blame for Ned's downfall. Sansa played a role, certainly, but it would be unfair to put all the blame on her. But it would also be unfair to exonerate her. She was not privy to all of Ned's plans regarding Stannis, the gold cloaks, etc... but she knew more than just that her father planned to spirit her and Arya away from King's Landing. She knew when they were to leave, on what ship, how many men would be in their escort, who would have the command, where Arya was that morning, etc... all of which was useful to Cersei in planning and timing her move.
Ned's talk with Littlefinger was certainly a turning point, though I am not sure I would call it =the= turning point. There were other crucial decisions that could easily have changed all had they gone differently. You mention Ned's refusal of Renly, which was equally critical. And there is Varys to consider, as well as the minor but crucial player everyone forgets -- Janos Slynt, who might have chosen just to do his duty instead of selling the gold cloaks to the highest bidder.
So... all in all, I suppose my answer would be that there is no single villain in the piece who caused it all, but rather a good half dozen players whose actions were all in part responsible for what happened.
Hope that helps.
(And let me add that I am always astonished to be reminded how fiercely some of my readers argue these points. It's gratifying to know I have readers who care so much, although if truth be told sometimes I get the scary feeling that you people know these books better than I do... )
My actual dreams are usually too incoherent to be of much use to me in my fiction.
However, quite often I find myself thinking of my stories just before sleep, as I lie in bed, and sometimes ideas, scenes, and plot twists will come to me then in profusion. Sometimes I even remember them the next day...
Dragons would have longer natural lifespans than human beings, certainly -- but given that so many of them are involved in wars, a good many of the Targaryen dragons did not live out anything approaching a natural span, but died "young" by violence. This was especially true during the "Dance of the Dragons," where both sides used dragons in battle against each other.
There will be more information on the Targaryen dragons in future volumes, but I'm not certain I'll go so far as to do a dragon geneology. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
[Note: The following chat is made available through the Internet Archive.]
http://web.archive.org/web/20001005212114/eventhorizon.com/sfzine/chats/transcripts/031899.html
[Summary: Yasmina asked if there were any plans for an art book of characters, as done with McCaffrey's Pern books, for _A Song of Ice and Fire_]
There's no plans for an art book at the moment, I'm afraid.
[Note: The following interview is archived.]
https://web.archive.org/web/19991013131915/http://cyberhaven.com/books/sciencefiction/martin.html
[Summary by Kay-Arne Hansen: Anyway, I asked how big the Iron Fleet was. And this was the answer he came up with. I do not recall how many major lords Balon has under him, but I think we speak about a fleet counting perhaps a thousand ships. (but only small ones :)
Oh yeah, this is just before he goes touring - hence the comment about his rush.]
No time for a lengthy answer. I leave town tomorrow and there are a million things to do.
In brief, though... the Iron Islands can float a lot more than a hundred ships. Each of the major lords probably commands that any.
However, it is important to remember that the longships are smaller and simpler than the fleets that Joffrey and Stannis warred with on the Blackwater. The former are Viking longboats, more or less; for the latter, think Venetian/Byzantine dromonds of war.