I'm about to start a second round of queries and was wondering if the NaNoWriMo event causes a huge spike in agent submissions, and would therefore make November/December a terrible time to try and catch an agent's eye. Any thoughts on this?
Yes, there's a spike in submissions after NaNoWriMo (usually at the first part of December), but it's a spike in unedited and mostly unpublishable attempts. If yours doesn't fall into that category, then all those duds will make yours seem even better.
Ditto that! I'd once seen an agent refer to December as NaQueRejMo: National Query Rejection Month. Your polished letter will probably be a welcome relief.
Er, Old Hack, I adore you and your avvie, but I take gentle exception to your latter statement.
For some markets, especially e-pub romance and its sub genres, authors should be at least considering the sequel as soon as they start querying the first book. Certainly as soon as they get an agent. Because one of the questions agents ask is "What else have you got?" If a writer queried the first book as the start of a series, the agent will want to know about the next book.
In SF&F, Jim Butcher outlined a dozen or more Dresden novels before he got his first and second agents. I believe Naomi Novik sold the first three books of the 'Temeraire' series at the same time. I know that fellow AW member Kevin Hearne sold the first three books of his 'Iron Druid' series at once. Newer writers are cautioned against 'wasting time' with unsold series novels. I'd counter that the effort is never wasted, and keeps one prepared.
But you're dead-right about polishing the hell out of what you query.
The problem with working on a sequel to a book you've not yet sold is that if you fail to sell the first book in the series, you're extremely unlikely to sell a sequel to it. You're usually better off writing a completely new book and only start work on the sequel once the first book in the series has found a publisher.