Published?

You network with other authors, get an agent, research publishing companies to find one that handles the genre you're looking to publish in. Once you've found a publisher, you need to make sure they're accepting manuscripts, and their criteria for submitting. This is where agents come in handy, they do a lot of that for you. Once you've gone over all of the submission criteria, you submit. Generally, you don't submit the entire manuscript. Most publishers ask for an outline and a chapter sample. If they like what they see, they'll ask for the full manuscript. It's a long, difficult, time-and-money consuming venture. I recommend checking out Writer's Weekends in your area, to start networking with folks in the field. It's best to form connections in the writing world before embarking on any sort of publishing venture. It's a very rare publisher that takes a book from someone no one has ever heard of before. (And for the record, while I don't have any novels published, I professionally write short fiction and have been published in various fiction magazines. Many of my friends are published novelists.)