Would it though? You need to be a little sneakier with your self promotion (and also not be ashamed of it!) It seems like you're suffering from the same problem many engineers do when faced with marketing their products or themselves. You don't want to spam people who aren't interested in your product (you). Fair enough. Nobody wants to be a spammer.

I've always been a marketer first, so I don't have any personal advice for overcoming this. I would advise you to look at some of the biggest brands, both corporate and personal, and look at their marketing strategies. You'll find that each brand, especially in its early stages, consistently market(ed|s) itself in ways that you might deem "spammy". A frequent example is Airbnb -- they pulled their listings from craigslist before they had both sides of the rental market. How else were they supposed to get customers?

Is that spamming? Is it spamming to promote your product? To engage in tactics that make it better for your users? If airbnb didn't use craigslist to acquire early users, it likely would never have gained traction, and nobody would use airbnb today. That would suck! Ask any airbnb user if they would be happy if airbnb was gone. They will probably answer no. Therefore they are happier because airbnb exists, but airbnb only exists because of the "spammy" tactics its founders used in its early stages.

Is "spamming" wrong when it benefits your product/brand, and makes it better for your users (ultimately the only ones you care about)? Do you care what people think if they aren't going to use your product or subscribe to your brand? Why should you?

Once you realize that every popular brand goes through some kind of growth hacking and/or marketing phase, you can accept it as the status quo requirement for initial promotion. Then you have to realize that a personal brand is no different than a corporate one. All the same branding rules apply.

Look at patio11, Brendan Dunn, Nathan Barry. They are two HN power users. They have followings of people who upvote every post they write, who subscribe to their email lists, and who buy their products. What do they all have in common? PERSONAL BRANDING. They aren't afraid to brag about themselves, they aren't afraid to ask for your email, and they aren't afraid to pitch themselves to you as a product. They understand their personal brands are valuable assets and they treat them as such. If you want to compete on the same plane, you need to engage in the same tactics.

Self promotion is nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody does it. It's the online analogue of self-confidence. Every leader needs to first be confident in himself/herself, before anyone else can be confident in him/her. Leaders need people to be confident in them. Therefore leaders need to be confident in themselves. Self-confidence begets self-promotion, and both feed on each other. Act confident, give people a reason to follow you, and build a following. As your following grows, so will your confidence. It's a positive feedback cycle. Be confident, promote yourself.

Congratulations on being on the receiving end of my daily diatribe! :) Hopefully something I said helps you. Just put yourself out there.