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I don't know for sure, but my impression was that, just like in the music business, the author gets only a tiny cut from each unit sold and the publisher and retailer get the lion's share.
Assume that the retail markup is something like 100%, which I understand is normal for retail. So a $10 book yields $5 to the retailer, of the remaining $5 the production and transport cost probably come to $2 and then assume the publisher splits the remained evenly with the author. That's $1.50 each. I don't know, but I strongly suspect the reality is that the author gets less than that per unit sold.
Take away the retailer's split, the production costs and the publishers split and there's $8.50 of costs that aren't in an ebook. Give the on-line vendor the same cut that the publisher was getting before and the author would break even at $3.00 a sale - assuming that you don't sell 3 times as many at 1/3 the price. And at $5 a book, you're still at the same price that most used book stores would sell the book - and the author gets $3.50 a copy.
Of course it costs money to take a book from draft manuscript to final product and market it. I can't even guess how that changes the math.
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