August is a terrible time for news in the publishing industry. It is largely "between seasons" as far as actual releases go. All of the academic books for fall course adoption had to be available by April, except perhaps updated editions, and those are to press by now. The "fall season" traditionally does not begin until 01 October, but has begun creeping a bit into September. (Publishing "seasons"—except perhaps for truly seasonal works, such as a guide to making Christmas decorations from common household packaging waste—are nonsense, but that's for another time.) Editorial staffs are pinging between trying to get the last of their summer vacations done while running around headless over last-minute errors in material for the "fall season," which means that submitted manuscripts are being read even more slowly than usual. Printing companies are going full-blast, often with extra shifts operating.
And because there is so little leisure, there is correspondingly less time for publicizing mischief.