creating book document in ipages

I appreciate that I'm being a halfwit about this, but I can't find a format for creating a 300-400 page document in ipages 09.
As I upgraded my old iMac and its elderly Quark etc to a MacBook Pro solely to write a book, I feel even more of a twerp not being able to work out how to start (it begs the question, how intelligent is the book going to be?).
I'm sure it's embarrassingly simple, but if anyone can help me by posting idiot-proof instructions, this idiot would be most grateful. RussC

I think I used 'format' in the wrong context (ie English, not computer), and probably just meant method.
In any event, it doesn't look as if anyone else knows how to create a book-length document with Pages, so I suppose I'll have to buy Microsoft's sotware after all, which I've used before on my old old iMac.

Why not choose a page layout form the templates and just add pages as you need them, or do u need all 300 in one hit. If you want a particular format then you can set it up as your template then keep adding it as needed page by page.