Aspiring writers and appraisal devices under market uncertainty

Abstract

Aspiring artists are uncertain about how their work’s quality will be evaluated by gatekeepers on artistic markets. Learning to evaluate the quality of one’s work and its prospects on the artistic market is central to artistic careers, yet often overlooked in research. An analysis of 47 interviews with aspiring writers in Sweden shows that they use what in this article is coined appraisal devices to deal with this market uncertainty. Appraisal devices offer trusted and knowledgeable appraisals of their work’s chances of success and failure on the artistic market. Appraisals from assessors become appraisal devices when assessors are trusted and seen as knowledgeable about how works are evaluated on the artistic market and are able to produce such evaluations. Appraisals from competitions become appraisal devices when the writer sees the evaluation as reflecting how the writer’s work will be evaluated on the artistic market. In contrast to judgment devices, which take the perspective of cultural consumption, appraisal devices take the perspective of cultural production. Aspiring artists use appraisal devices to deal with the uncertainty of their chances of success on the artistic market.