This presentation focuses on the books printed in Cochinchina and registered in the Indochinese legal deposit from 1922 to 1944. I will treat printed volumes not just as cultural and intellectual objects, but as marketable products that propelled the rise of Vietnamese industry and private enterprise in the same way as did the production of soap, fish sauce, essential oils, etc. At the same time, a large proportion of books circulating outside of the administrative centers of the Mekong Delta were labeled ‘forbidden to sell’ or ‘for free distribution’. For some publishing houses, especially ones in the Sa Đéc area, ‘free’ books comprised up to three fourths of their total output. Those were usually religious texts, prayers, oracles, “moral books” that were often republished dozens of times and disseminated through temples. While their printing was organized in a similar fashion to that of ‘commercial’ books, the marketing of the not-for-sale volumes operated through non-commercial channels, whereas their production was financed mainly by individual and group donations. The goal of this presentation is to rehabilitate the non-commercial transactions from the margins of the ‘modern’, commercial publishing, and demonstrate their prominent place in the expansion of print, and important implications for the broader religious and cultural phenomena of the region, such as Buddhist renewal and the spread of Caodaism.