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Timboli, what you describe makes perfect sense but it doesn't work that way. I'm pretty sure they'd have break downs per book that show what you're talking about, but those break downs do not govern the book price. What they can feasibly sell the book for governs the price. (Genre fiction sells for "this much", non-fictions sells for "that much".) You can see it in both the paper book and ebook pricing. Certainly paper books may have some minimum before it sells at a loss, but once it has been printed almost any sale is better than no sale*. You'd have to see more of the financial details of the publishers to understand all the ins and outs of this stuff, but the evidence is there in the prices, in paper and digital.
* Note that big publishers typically have print runs rather than only printing on demand. So they are not looking at $5 per book, but at some thousands per thousand books. The costs occur in big chunks, the sales occur in small amounts, and they have to allow for returns. All this changes how things work, and what seems sensible on a theoretical book-by-book basis becomes meaningless in the real world.
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