I would expect that the VERY FIRST thing they did was make copies of the letters.
Would it be expensive and time consuming?
Sure, but not as bad as they’d like us to think.
If I decided to hand copy the book of Colossians, it would take a few hours.
I’ll bet I could get it done in a day. It’s not that long of a book.
I have noticed that the least plausible theories typically depend on people being extremely stupid. Only if entire congregations were comprised of unusually unintelligent people would nobody think to copy something as precious as a letter from one of the apostles.