This is just the nature of the industry. It's the same here in Canada. Many publishing houses won't even let you submit works to them unsolicited, many more without having an agent, and the vast vast majority without having some history of published stories/prose/poetry/whatever in at least semi-respected literary journals and magazine. It sucks, but it's the nature of the industry, and to be quite honest, it's understandable. The places that do allow unsolicited manuscripts submitted, receive thousands upon thousands of them, and often use a vanity-press as part of a way to pay for the costs of printing the rare few manuscripts they actually select to take the risk themselves with.
Unfortunately, publishing houses that are willing to cover the cost of a print run, and the marketing of a book so it will actually sell, aren't going to take a leap on someone's very first novel, without any agent or history of publication. Unless I'm mistaken and you have submitted and been published before? A print run for a publishing house, and the marketing required for a new author to even have a hope of selling his book, is a significant outlay. What do you and your book bring to the table for them to want to take that risk on you, that's any different than any other unsolicited manuscript received? That's what you need to ask yourself? I mean, right now, you are like someone who walks into an engineering firm asking for a job, and says he taught himself at home to be an engineer... Maybe he did. Maybe he would make a great engineer, but without education and accreditation, no one would ever give him a chance. Of course writing is and entirely different industry, and you could very well be an excellent writer, who has written a novel that could plausibly sell, but the fact you have no history to illustrate this... did you at least major in writing/literature in University? Did you submit to your University's literary review if it had one?
I had quite a few friends in my early to mid 20s go through the MFA program at UBC in creative writing. And it was a constant struggle for the vast majority to get into the industry, even after most of them had published short fiction, creative non-fiction and other stuff in University literary journals and reviews. And they have connections through professors and the like.
As a new author with no name, no history, no agent, submitting a manuscript for a first novel... you have to be aware that the chances of your novel getting published without going through a vanity press and significant expense to you is infinitesimal.
There are two paths I would suggest if you don't want to go the vanity press/self-publishing route.
Option 1) Find excerpts/chapters from your novel that can work as self-contained stories. Submit these as stories to as many respected literary journals/magazines/reviews as you can. These will usually also pay for stories. Stay away from garbage online ones. The only danger here is you have to pay attention to copyright laws and ownership of publishing rights for your work. If your piece gets selected for publishing in one of these journals you have to make them aware then that it is part of a longer novel, so you need to make sure you have the right to publish in the future as part of that novel.
Option 2) Set your novel aside for the time being. Don't worry about rushing to have it published. Instead start writing a ton of short fiction. Every day. For the next year or longer. Pick your best pieces and submit them to everywhere you can that is reputable. Literary journals and magazines. Literary contests. This is how most new writers I have known/know start out. Once you build up a resume of published stories, start sending your novel to publishing houses, with this attached. You will gain much more traction, and be far more likely to be given serious consideration.
Just for an example, here's a listing on CBC of literary journals and magazines in Canada open to submission and what they pay if they select your work for publishing.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrite...es-and-journals-open-to-submissions-1.4242191