The easiest way to get started with a book is to make a selection of images that you want to put in it and then do File > New From Selection > Book. Here is what you get:

Don't miss the softcover books, selected by picking from the pop-up top left:

Here I have made an image selection, created a new book and called it Wind and Water:

There are 40 images in there that are straight from the camera. I went through several hundred that I had shot recently and gave anything that was part way decent one star and deleted the ones that were no good for anything, then filtered to one star, selected all of them, and created a new book.

So why not adjust and tag and rate and all that and then make the book? Well partly because I don't have to do things in that order if I don't want to: that is one of the beauties of Aperture. It is non-destructive and non-linear as well. Not so much of a workflow tool as a work freedom tool. And partly because I want to see how the images look together in a book before I start messing with them. And partly because I don't think I will use these images for anything else ever, so why bother with the extra work?

So here is the book that it created:

Except that I don't see a book here. Apart from a few new icons upper right, it looks just like the grid view to me. I have to press V to bring up the viewer because the viewer was not visible when I created the book. The book appears in the viewer. Aperture should really do that step for you.

Here I have used shift W to put the thumbnails at the bottom and W to get rid of the project pane. I magnified the book image a little by using the slider top right. On the left is the layout of the pages in my 20 page softcover book.

So far there are no images in the book, so everything is gray. To get images in I just drag and drop from the thumbnails to the grey boxes. Here is the first page with an image dropped on:

I clicked on the text and changed it to make a book title as well. The thumbnail I used now has a little number on it showing that I have used the image once:

But I don't like this image the way it is. It should be bigger and more central. And I think it would look better flipped 180 degrees. So I select the image and hit ] twice to flip it and then double click to bring up the Image Scale slider and adjust the size. To centralize the image, I just click and drag:

To end this I click outside the image. Was there any exposure adjustment when I took this photo? Just put the cursor over the image and press T to to bring up the metadata:

No exposure bias there. Now the colors look too dull for a title page, so I hit H to bring up the adjustment HUD and play a little. Am I making the image too grainy? Bring up the loupe and have a look:

It probably is too grainy, so I'll reduce the magnification, change the composition some more, and crank up the saturation:

Good. Now what about that font? I want something more interesting, but there is no obvious way to change it. It's done through the pop-up menu. If I control-click on the text and select Fonts that gets me this:

And now I can select something better:

But I want the text centered and there is no obvious way to do this either! This is because the alignment of the text in the text box is a property of the text box, not of the text inside it. So I have to switch to Edit Layout mode. So far I have been in Edit Content mode, so moving text boxes and all that has not been possible. This is good because I can't accidently mess anything up. To change modes I click the right button of these two on the top left:

And now I can change the setting either by selecting the text box and control-clicking on one of the control points:

or by selecting the text box and using the Actions menu (cog icon) on the lower left:

And here is the text centered:

While I'm in Edit Layout, I'll take the time to move the box up and add some more text. Moving the box up and down is tricky because the box snaps to the edge of the page and the image, but this only happens if I use the control points on the edges of the text box. If I use the corner points the movement is smooth and I can get to where I want:

For that extra text, I use the action menu (cog icon) to add a new text box and position it. Then add and style text:

Now I will probably want to use these styles again in other parts of the book. By selecting some text and right-clicking I can get to the Style dialog:

and that lets me add it to my favorites. The style is actually shown in the white area, but you can't see it because it is white on white:

I click Add To Favorites and can give it a name:

I can repeat this with the other style I used and then select these later through the Favorite Styles selection. The way all of this works is really kooky. I don't know why there is not just an inspector like in Pages that does all of this. To style new text, select it, control-click to get the styles sheet, click Favorite Styles, and pick the one you want:

and click Apply. The styles two I added I called Overtype and Title, and you can see them in the list above.

So here is my finished title page:

I have no idea how this would look printed as a book, but for this exercise I don't care. I could simply print this book to a PDF document and email it if I preferred that.