Making money as a freelance writer

I really love to write. I have been writing short stories and articles for pay for about 5-6 years now. Most of them had been for small time print magazines that only paid about $20.00 or less, but hey, I was in print! It is a big ego boost to me to have someone read my work and enjoy it. I really like writing for Associated Content since I now just write something that I know or like and submit it for payment. They apparently like my work because I always get an up front offer of payment for my articles. They not only pay me for publishing the article on their site but I also get paid extra for each 1000 readers that read my articles. So far I get a nice little payment each month just for people reading articles I have already been paid for. One month I got over 9K readers for one article alone and that meant an added $9+ that month in addition to my other articles views. Freelance writing has now become a really nice part time income that I only thought of as a hobby before.