Ironically, the best way to strike it rich may be to give away what you make instead of charging money for it, according to Chris Anderson, the author of a new book that explores the 'free' phenomenon.

In "Free: The Future of a Radical Price," the editor of Wired magazine predicts that consumers will be able to get more and more products at no cost as companies realize the promotional value of giving things away for free.

"Free is the best form of marketing - we know this. We have free spritzes of perfume in the department store, free samples of muffins... but with digital stuff, it can be 90 per cent free, 10 per cent paid," Anderson told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday.

The Internet has made the cost of replicating and delivering digital products so low, that companies can now affordably distribute their digital wares to large numbers of people and offer them at no cost to consumers. If the give-away reaches a large enough audience it can pay off in spades.

"Ten per cent of a big number, is a big number," Anderson said.

"Free" begins with an example from the British comedy troupe Monty Python. Last year, the surviving members launched their own channel on YouTube. It was a reaction to unauthorized clips of their work appearing on the popular video website.

The Monty Python channel provided high-quality versions of the group's skits, viewable for free. In exchange, the comedians asked viewers to buy their DVDs, movies and TV shows "to soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years," they quipped.

The result? On Amazon.com, sales of Monty Python DVDs rose 23,000 per cent over the next three months.

"The point is that you don't just have a free product. You also have a free and a paid one. And you're actually giving away one product as a sample to let people figure out whether it's right for them," Anderson said. "You can give away one version for free to everybody as long as you have a second paid version that you can sell to those who want more."

He points to a recent experiment by British band Radiohead as another triumph of free on the Web. They let customers download their latest album for whatever price they chose, including zero.

Instead of losing money, however, Radiohead embarked on what was reportedly their most successful world tour "on the back of free music," as Anderson put it. The give-away also helped launch a box set that sold quite well.

That's because charging nothing is a sure-fire way of attracting customers for other paid products and services.

Online services such as the photo-sharing site Flickr operate on such a principle. Even if nine out of 10 consumers use the free version of the service, there's a professional edition that costs money. The free version draws in users, the professional one makes the company profitable.

"Free is not just the lowest price, it's the easiest price. You don't have to think about it," Anderson said. "It encourages uptake, it encourages sampling."

Practicing what he preaches, the author made the entire text of "Free" available online at no cost for a limited time. It was viewed more than 170,000 times and the book later debuted in 12th spot on the New York Times best-seller list when it was released.

Reviewers seemed to love or hate it. The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell criticized "Free" for painting give-aways as a hard-and-fast way to be successful in the rapidly-evolving information economy.

"The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws," Gladwell wrote.

And on Tuesday, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman publicly criticized Anderson's argument about the virtues of free. The book ignores the time and money that goes into generating content for the web, he said during a speech in Chicago.

But for creative entrepreneurs like musicians, Anderson is adamant that give-aways are a powerful money-making tool.