This one does, but that's just because that was the norm on UK tie-ins like the Dr Who books and so it's just become SOP. Or a bad habit, if you prefer...
I did not write the back cover blurb for Losing the Peace, nor was I given the opportunity to review or (dis)approve it.
Sometimes I've been given the chance to write the first draft of the blurb myself, subject to editorial revision (e.g. The Buried Age, Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder, and Over a Torrent Sea). At other times (including Orion's Hounds, X-Men: Watchers on the Walls, and the abortive Seek a Newer World), I've been sent the draft blurb and been able to suggest revisions. And sometimes it's been done without my involvement.
^ Sometimes a blurb will come in, and it's based on the outline, or some other early marketing material, and it requires revising to bring it in line with the way the manuscript eventually turns out. Not an uncommon occurrence at all.
Hm, from the other authors' replies maybe it varies between editors and workloads. All I know is I said to Jaime "I expect you'll be wanting me to do some cover copy" and she said "if you're volunteering that'd be a load off..."
Of course not all writers want to - some may feel the marketing chimps will do it better. I prefer to do it myself because I got used to doing it with books in the UK tie-in market, where the writers are more expected to do the blurbs.
^Yeah... after I wrote the cover blurb for my Spidey novel, I then saw the preliminary blurb in the S&S catalog, and I liked that one better than mine. Though that's not usually the case, since preliminary blurbs tend to be based on limited info and can be rather inaccurate.
I cheated and wrote the wrote the catalog sell-sheet one for IFM as well... Which at least means it *should* be more accurate - but I was concerned about spoilers, so wanted to control what was leaked in it...
^I was invited to write the sell-sheet blurb for my DTI novel, and I hadn't even written the outline yet at that point. But what I came up with is still a reasonable description of the novel, since it's more about the general premise and tone than plot specifics. In a way, it's kind of a mission statement.
I rarely got asked to write the cover copy for anything of mine/mine and Kevin's John, Marco, or Margaret was editing, though every once in a while they came asking for ideas/etc., and then we got a chance to tweak things. Jaime seems much more happy to let the authors contribute to that process, if not do it outright. Then again, she's doing 2 or 3 people's worth of work, so I imagine she'd take all the help she can get with the little knucklehead stuff.
The Breen, Gorn, Kinshaya, Romulan Star Empire, Tzenkethi, and Tholians. The beginning of the Pact was covered in KRAD's A Singular Destiny.
Infodump time! : They're a culture whose military is organized as a theocratic hierarchy (ranks translate as Bishop, Deacon, Vicar, etc), and whose scripture seems traditionally xenophobic (though of course they're reinterpreting it to allow for membership in the Pact). They have a long on-off conflict with the Klingons, being too small to be considered a major threat but too large to be conquered. They also consider the Klingons "demons". The Holy Order of the Kinshaya is their nation's full name, and the Kinshaya themselves look a little like griffins, with four legs and a pair of wings on their back. They can't actually fly, if I remember correctly- they use the wings for display now, and the colours on the wing signify family lineage. They like to salute by flaring the wings and making a shrieking noise. Oh, and they like circles.
^Not sure about the "too large to be conquered" part, since the Klingons successfully conquered the Kinshaya homeworld not long before A Singular Destiny, IIRC.
Good point. I forgot about that. Okay, perhaps I should have said "too tenacious to ever just sit down and allow themselves to be made a part of the empire, and too much bother in the long-run" (I believe it mentioned Klag actually rendered the homeworld uninhabitable rather than have to keep holding it).