A newbie author tries to publish a novel (part 1)

So I just completed my first novel and, like everyone who has accomplished this herculean task (many), I want to publish it. Needless to say, the writing is fun and easy compared to me, an unknown author trying to publish their first novel. I thought I'd try to be systematic about it.

• Research publishers that are both interested in my genre (sci-fi) and willing to read manuscripts from unpublished authors without agents.
  
• Of these, identify the ones that don't require the entire book at once and "get the ball rolling" by sending them the first three chapters, synopsis, cover letter, etc even before I was completely done writing. In general, publishers don't like this, they expect the novel to be complete before you come to them.
  
• When finished with the novel, send it to the other publishers that require the whole manuscript at once.
  

I didn't bother with trying to find an agent at this point because I was under the impression that agents are uninterested in you unless you've sold books before or at least have a contract in hand with a publisher. This isn't necessarily true, but more on that later.

Well, theory rarely follows practice and so before finishing it, I ended up only sending it to one publisher when, if I was being more aggressive on the marketing angle, I would have hit several. For this one, my scheme worked in that I got a response just as I was approaching the finish line on the novel. They said they wanted to see the next four chapters (chapters 4-7).

I was so excited! My first submission and I got a nibble. In fishing, a nibble is a long way from catching a fish, but it's encouraging just the same and so I was pretty pumped. My optimism was somewhat dampened by the fact that they only wanted to see the next four chapters versus the whole thing, but I didn't ask questions. I just did what I was told. Through email, the editor said she was looking forward to reading the next four chapters, she emailed me to tell me when she got it, everything seemed like it was running on track.

And then nothing.

Seven weeks later I emailed the editor asking if they were still interested because if not, I wanted to send the manuscript to other publishers.

Nothing!

Come on! I realize that editors are inundated with manuscripts and that they don't have time to treat everyone with the highest level of care, but you can send a damn email back! All I wanted was a rejection letter, but apparently pasting a boilerplate rejection into an email and pressing the send button was too much trouble.

Again, I realize the publishing industry is callous and so I half expected this treatment for an unsolicited manuscript, but this second set of chapters was
requested by the publisher. I spent a hours reformatting my content to their specifications, printing it, and sending it off from the post office and the editor can't even press the "send" button?

Anyway, I'm going to have to toughen up. J.K Rowling even got rejected multiple times and probably dealt with her share of discourtesy. More posts to follow.