Best way to continue text in a large document

Hi. I am working on a large document, probably going to be 50 pages or more. I am wondering what the most efficient means of creating text obbjects on each page that are all  linked to each other. My document is landscape format and will have 3 columns per page in general.

I started making a text frame on one object and using the text flow tab to create a new text box on the next page. A couple of things. First, I have a hard time hovering over the text flow tab and getting the right choice to come up to get the text flow. when i hover over the text flow tab, usually the pick tool either turns into the resize or move tool, the tool that helps you create a new linked text object usually doesn't come up. So any ideas on why I am haing trouble using this contextual tool would be appreciated.

Second, when I do get it to work, the new object on the next page does not have three columns so I have to go up and change that in the options for each page.

So, any thoughts on how to do this the most efficiently? Why am I having a hard time with the text flow tab? And is there a way to automatically create a new text object with three columns instead of one?

Thanks in advance!