Autor Restrictions?

Being an author is not a job. You have a very good chance of not selling anything you write, and making no money at all. You need full time, paying work if you are going to support yourself, never mind a family.

Writing is a bit like acting - at best it's a very part-time job, usually without any pay whatsoever, and it's extremely unusual for any actor or writer to make enough money to live on.
It's extremely hard getting published, even if you self-publish you'd have to be very talented, very lucky and very dedicated to get people to pay to read your work.
A few writers get one book published and sold in good numbers. But very few manage to get another one out there.
You'd definitely need to get qualified for a very well-paid ordinary job to support you while you write in your spare time. That's what almost all writers do - they work in the day-times and write in the evenings and at weekends.

If your main reason for wanting to write isn't that you love writing, find another hobby or career goal. It's not wrong to want to be rich, but so few of the people who attempt it through writing achieve it that the most likely result is that you'll end up bitter and twisted at having wasted years chasing a dream that was never going to come true.

With that out of the way, it's not really a question of how much time you need to put in. It will probably take you years to reach the standard where people are willing to pay to read your books, but once you're at that standard, nobody cares whether a book took you one month or ten years. (Unless they've been waiting ten years to read it, maybe - see, for instance, George R R Martin.)

Self-publishing, if done well, can pay better than traditional publishing. You keep more of the money, and you can price the books lower than traditional publishing, which allows you to sell more copies. The key words, though, are "if done well". Far too many people look at self-publishing and say, "Hey, there's nobody to tell me I can't publish - yippee!" They don't stop to think that that also means there's nobody to tell them that maybe they *shouldn't* publish, because the book isn't ready.

Writing is just like any other art form, it's a gamble. There's a chance that your work is good and becomes a bestseller, but that's a million I one. Chances are you may get published, but you won't pull in enough to pay the pills. This is a hobby that you should do because you like it not because you want to get rich. And unless you're and editor this is not a nine to five job. This is whenever you have free time and feel like writing. Oh and writing is not a job like that. You don't get paid by sitting at a computer and typing three words every hour. You get paid when you sell a book to a publisher. So,etching that might never happen.

EDIT: Don't listen to Megan, she has no idea what she's talking about. Good writers get turned down all the time, it's a brutal business. And how much time you put into your book doesn't mean crap to publishers, whether that's a day or a year they just want it to sell.

They work all the time. It usually doesn't pay well.

If you have to ask this question then no, you can't make ends meet doing this.

Depends on if you're a good author or a bad author as to how much money you'd make and it's up to the author how many hours he/she writes.

They work all the time. It usually doesn't pay well.